At a time when a Palestinian Arab sovereign state is so widely discussed, very few have taken the time to consider the consequences of establishing such an entity.
1. Encirclement: Will a proposed sovereign Palestine not swallow up Jordan, most of whose population is Palestinian, leave Israel with a hostile state from the Iraqi border to the Mediterranean Sea, with a corridor across the Negev between Gaza to Hebron?
2. Israeli Arabs: Will the Arabs of Israel’s Galilee and Triangle region not sue for “autonomy,” and then demand the fulfillment of U.N. Resolution 181 – an Israeli withdrawal to the 1947 lines (which would entail the evacuation of Jews from Nahariya, Acre, Nazareth, Jaffa, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat and Beer Sheva?)
3. Terror: Will a new Palestinian entity disband terrorist organizations? After all, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has so far refused to dismantle or disband the Al Aksa Brigades of the Fatah which coordinates aerial attacks into Israel’s Western Negev region together with the Hamas.
4. Armament: Why should there be any expectation that a sovereign Palestine will uphold any commitment for demilitarization, since the Palestinian Authority has never upheld any such commitment since the Oslo Accords?
5. Refugees: Based on the Saudi plan as a basis for a Palestinian state, does that not mean that Israel will have to absorb descendents of refugees and displace thousands of Israelis from places like Haifa, Tfzat and Jaffa and collective farms built on the ruins of Arab neighborhoods or villages from where Arabs fled in 1948?
6. Air space: Will the Israel Air Force be forbidden from flying over the “West Bank,” just as it was banned from the Lebanese skies?
7. Alliances: Based on diplomatic experience with the Palestinian Authority, will a Palestine not violate every prohibition on signing military agreements with countries hostile to Israel, placing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on Israel’s borders?
8. Water: Like the Palestinian Authority before it, will a sovereign Palestine not carry out pirate drillings, and threaten the mountain aquifer overlooking Israel’s coastal plain?
9. Jewish sovereignty: Will the momentum of a Palestine not erase the right of the Jews to the land of Israel in international consciousness?
10. Loss of independence: Will Israel not become a protectorate that is subject to the Quartet – the U.S., the EU, the U.N. and Russia?